Anurag Agrawal

Early reviews & events: Monarchs and Milkweed

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Monarchs and Milkweed is now available, although the official release date from Princeton University Press in April 11. On Saturday April 8th, I will be participating in the San Antonio Book Festival. Early reviews have been positive (thank you!), including a whirlwind summary in the Washington Post, which emphasizes conservation issues and my argument that milkweed limitation is not driving… Read more

Winter Walk #3

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

On Friday March 24, we had our third winter walk… after a mostly snow-free and rather warm winter, last week we got well over a foot of snow in Ithaca. Schools (including Cornell) were closed for 2 days, and we all did a bit of skiing. The ground has retained more snow cover from this storm than it had all… Read more

Gordon Conference – Cornell connections

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

The women of Cornell’s plant-herbivore group (Jennifer, Natasha, Zoe, Katja, Katie, Lina, and Aino) recently returned from the plant-herbivore interactions gordon research conference. Pictures below by Jennifer Thaler. As usual, Jennifer described the GRC as a love-fest, seeing old friends and meeting new colleagues. Especially fun for those in attendance (I was home looking after the family) were all of… Read more

Jigsaw #3 – Specialists vs. Generalists

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Paul Feeny visiting our lab group meeting in the Fern Room, 4th floor of Corson hall.

Last week in the Plant-Interactions-Group we had our 3rd JIGSAW session. Our topic was specialists vs. generalists in plant-herbivore interactions. I was inspired to cover this topic because it is a persistent issue, one that has been discussed widely in ecology for decades. Are… Read more

The oldest butterfly?

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — 1 Comment ↓

It’s unclear when humans became humans. Presumably it was a gradual growth of our consciousness over the eons. There are some things, however, that appear to distinguish us from most other animals. For example, our artistic depictions. From the deepest, darkest caves have emerged pictures of humanity from thousands of years ago. And in an Egyptian tomb, that of Nebamun,… Read more

Winter Walk 2017 #2

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Cold and crisp among the antique hemlocks. Over a hundred years old and certainly over a 100 ft tall.

Last week, late in February, it was nearly 70F in Ithaca, NY. Buds were breaking, as were temperature records. I heard a lecture yesterday that projected that this spring would be 2-3 weeks early compared to 2012, which previously held the… Read more

Monarch population size over winter 2016-2017 announced!

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — 13 Comments ↓

The estimates of the monarch butterfly overwintering population were announced Thursday February 9th by WWF Mexico. The butterflies are so dense at their dozen or so mountain-top clustering sites that overwintering butterflies cannot be counted. Instead, the area of forest that is densely coated with butterflies (at about 5,000 butterflies per square meter looking up into the canopy) is estimated… Read more

PIG: The jigsaw experiment

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Cornell’s Plant-Insect Group, affectionately known as PIG, has been meeting for weekly discussions every semester for at least 12 years. In the old days, Paul Feeny and Dick Root would join us for inspiring discussions, merging the past with the future. These days, the Ithaca group, digitally connected with folks in Geneva, NY, is frequently a gaggle of over 30… Read more

Where do monarch butterflies come from?

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — 2 Comments ↓

The plight of monarch butterflies is often in the news and many scientists around the world are working hard to understand their annual migratory cycle. How do the monarchs produced during summer in the northern reaches of America contribute to the overwintering population in Mexico? The origins of monarch butterflies that make it to Mexico has been hotly debated and… Read more

Winter Walks 2017 #1

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Eurosta solidaginis, the goldenrod gall fly, a tasty treat for vertebrates, made sweeter by the winter cold — sugar is the anti-freeze. Photo by Katie Holmes.

Winter Walks are a tradition of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Cornell University, started by Professor Peter Marks in the 1970s. Winter walks grew out of the teaching of Plant Ecology field… Read more

Monarch book!

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

My new book, Monarchs and Milkweed, a highly illustrated popular science book will be available in late March from Princeton University Press. Here is what Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, says: It’s impossible to imagine the world without monarch butterflies. But they face mounting challenges. This clear, fact-packed book looks at this astonishing and… Read more

Welcome to the new lab page!

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Hi folks! Welcome to the revised landing page, with the added benefit of blog posts. You’ll see posts related to interesting ecology and evolutionary biology, monarch butterflies, and and our plant-insect interactions weekly discussions here. For this first post, I simply want to let you know that past “Lab News” back to 2009 can be found here.… Read more